That vision conflicts with the division of powers being promoted by many Iraqi politicians, who want regional powers divided among smaller provinces throughout the country.
An 1899 agreement between colonial powers divided Samoa into spheres of influence: Germany gained control of the western islands, and the United States took the eastern islands.
Another (ahem) parallel: Both sets of powers divided the territories between each other irrespective of the native peoples present in those areas.
At times, Mr. Erdogan has seized on the issue of Mosul to highlight century-old grievances that linger from the end of World War I, when Western powers divided the former Ottoman lands of the Middle East.
After the fighting stopped, the major powers divided Korea in two for occupation purposes, with Soviet forces in control north of the 38th parallel and American forces south of it.
The victorious powers divided Germany into four zones of occupation and later into two countries: the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), separated for more than 40 years by a long boundary.
Between the 1840s and 1949, China was occupied by the colonial powers, divided and fragmented.
– It has a parliamentary system of government with powers divided between a central government and 16 states and federal territories.
But the two countries are regional powers, divided by history as well as a 21st Century rivalry.
